eatyourpaisley:

people are so infuriating sometimes like they won’t believe that racism or sexism exists but if you tell them that leaving half an onion next to their bedside table will cure them of all illnesses forever they will eat that shit up no questions asked

Parallax art of farmers’ fields in Khartoum, Sudan.

magicpottybaby:

flusschen:

meanwhile in 1997 these cutting edge internet themed crayons were born

www.purple

gay-for-satan:

jean-ralphio-kirschtein:

sawsbuck:

“Pet crows give their owners names. This is identified by a unique sound they make around specific people that they would not otherwise make."

oh my GOD

This is fucking me up

CROWS

In analysis of Presidential pardons during the George W. Bush administration, ProPublica has found that whites were four times as likely as non-whites to be granted a pardon.  Pardons were granted to 12% of whites, 10% of Hispanics and Asians, and zero percent of Blacks and Native Americans. The disparity remained even when investigators controlled for type of crime.

ProPublica explains:

…President George W. Bush decided at the beginning of his first term to rely almost entirely on the recommendations made by career lawyers in the Office of the Pardon Attorney.

The office was given wide latitude to apply subjective standards, including judgments about the “attitude” and the marital and financial stability of applicants…

Bush followed the recommendations of the pardons office in nearly every case… President Obama — who has pardoned 22 people, two of them minorities — has continued the practice of relying on the pardons office.

Sometimes disparate decisions in pardon cases were eyebrow raising:

An African American woman from Little Rock, fined $3,000 for underreporting her income in 1989, was denied a pardon; a white woman from the same city who faked multiple tax returns to collect more than $25,000 in refunds got one. A black, first-time drug offender — a Vietnam veteran who got probation in South Carolina for possessing 1.1 grams of crack – was turned down. A white, fourth-time drug offender who did prison time for selling 1,050 grams of methamphetamine was pardoned.

ProPublica traces the disparity to age, leniency given to people who are seen as “upstanding” members of society (e.g., they’re married, have little debt), the influence of money and politics (letters from Congresspersons and donations to lawmakers by convicts’ spouses), and simple prejudice.  Nevertheless:

When the effects of those factors and others were controlled using statistical methods, however, race emerged as one of the strongest predictors of a pardon.

Originally posted in 2012. Re-posted in solidarity with the African American community; regardless of the truth of the Martin/Zimmerman confrontation, it’s hard not to interpret the finding of not-guilty as anything but a continuance of the criminal justice system’s failure to ensure justice for young Black men.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

“[H]olding all other factors constant,” Amnesty International summarizes, “the single most reliable predictor of whether someone will be sentenced to death is the race of the victim.”

Originally posted in 2010. Re-posted in solidarity with the African American community; regardless of the truth of the Martin/Zimmerman confrontation, it’s hard not to interpret the finding of not-guilty as anything but a continuance of the criminal justice system’s failure to ensure justice for young Black men.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

Great photos from a camp for gender nonconforming boys and their parents.

Justin Timberlake gives Take Back the Night a shout out, after unknowingly naming a song after them.

7 Mind Blowing Moments From Zimmerman Juror B37′s First Interview,

Eric Ohena Lembembe, an LGBTI activist and journalist in Cameroon was tortured and killed.

Apparently, rape in the military is a “pseudo-crisis.” Good to know!

How transgender workers are using the Civil Rights Act to fight against discrimination.

Civil disobedience student organization Dream Defenders occupies Governor Rick Scott’s office and demands special session on Trayvon Martin and Stand Your Ground laws.

Friend of the site Rachel Hills has a piece in this week’s edition of the UK magazine The Stylist, about the misogyny that marked Julia Gillard’s short but eventful tenure as Prime Minister of Australia. Gillard was ousted earlier this year, replaced by the man she herself had ousted just a few years before. Hills examines the role of misogyny and sexism in the taking down of Gillard:

To understand what happened to Gillard, it’s crucial to first paint a picture of Australia’s political culture, which is in equal parts ruthless and irreverent, full of brutal bon mots and poll-driven leadership changes. As an Australian woman, my earliest political memory is watching the debonair Paul Keating – no stranger to the parliamentary putdown himself – celebrating his victory over long-time collaborator and political ‘frenemy’ Bob Hawke for the prime ministership in December 1991. In my home state of New South Wales, the state Labor government changed leaders twice in one term. The BBC’s Nick Bryant recently described Australia as “the coup capital of the democratic world.”

In many respects, Julia Gillard’s rise and fall from power fits this dramatic pattern well. She became leader of her party in June 2010 when opinion polls suggested that Rudd would not win again. Then, when her own popularity tanked, Rudd swooped in to replace her. But while personal attacks are part of the seamy underbelly of Australian politics, those faced by Gillard had an extra unpleasant element. One look at the way some Australians described her (“witch,” “bitch,” “menopausal maniac” and a “non-productive old cow”) and it was evident that those gunning for Gillard were homing in on more than her politics: her gender.

“If Julia Gillard had been a man, she would [still] have been slandered,” acknowledges Rowena Bianchino, a 34-year-old psychotherapist from Coffs Harbour in New South Wales. “But the attacks on her were very gender specific.”

You can – and should – read the whole thing here. Hills does an excellent job of placing Gillard’s Prime Ministership in the larger context of Australian politics, and of the global project of changing the face of political leadership.

Jay Livingston at Montclair SocioBlog discussed the two figures below (full report here).  The first shows that Black and Hispanic drivers are more likely to be stopped by Los Angeles Police than White drivers.  The second shows that, when stopped, if searched, police are more likely to find weapons and drugs on Whites than on either Blacks or Hispanics.  Conclusion: Blacks and Hispanics are being racially profiled by the L.A.P.D. and racial profiling does not work.  Data from New York City in 2008 tells a similar story.

The New York Civil Liberties Union reports that the NYPD stopped 161,000 people in the first quarter of 2011. A record number.  Eighty-four percent of those stopped were Black or Latino.  The Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit, claiming that the practice is unconstitutional.

Originally posted in 2011. Re-posted in solidarity with the African American community; regardless of the truth of the Martin/Zimmerman confrontation, it’s hard not to interpret the finding of not-guilty as anything but a continuance of the criminal justice system’s failure to ensure justice for young Black men.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

Friend of the blog Evan Narcisse wrote an interesting take on playing through historical worlds while black:

The game begins in 1715, when European rule over the island was still firmly established. That means I might be traipsing around an island where some Frenchman with my last name owns someone who looks like my father. And that might make me wince a little. But Ismail also told me that Edward Kenway’s first mate Adewale starts the game as a slave and becomes a free man over the course of the single-player story. Adewale will also be the focus of some of Black Flag‘s DLC.

Focusing on Adewale and touching on slavery as it might’ve been lived in the early 1700s moves the racial portrayal forward from last year’s Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation. The heroine of that Vita game was the child of a slave and had missions where she freed others from servitude. And, with confirmation that Aveline will also be playable in PlayStation-exclusive add-ons for the game, ACIV will have two prominent black characters where so many titles struggle to have even one.

Narcisse also explores his own family history and what he hopes to see reflected in the game play.  Read the rest at Kotaku.

cassbuttstiel:

I had a dream that I was flirting with Leonardo DiCaprio and I said “what’s your sign?" and he said “DiCapricorn" and I laughed so hard I woke up

corrientescirculareseneletiempo:

landofrhymeandreason:

The Rosy Maple Moth is the prettiest moth ever.

(I do not own the rights to these photos, I just wanted to share this beautiful moth with tumblr.)

The noble Fruit Salad moth

My faith in large parts of humanity has been shaken this week. This kid is giving me some hope for the future, though. Watch how Ali Ahmed explains to news outlet El Wady what a fascist theocracy is and then preaches the importance of feminism to a new Egypt. I love when the interviewer asks, “Who taught you all this?” and the Ahmed’s all, “I just know it. I listen to people a lot, and I use my own brain.” And of course he’s read the Constitution.

Kids today.

I get “fake geek girl" BS in job interviews. I have skipped applying for programming jobs because the ads promote the “bro-centric company culture," where it is common to drink beer and no one complains about your naughty sense of humor. I have applied at companies that won’t interview me for the position that I’m qualified for because the type of programming that I do is more typical for guys and this other type over here that I don’t do is more typical for girls; in order to show how inclusive of women they are, they strongly encourage me to apply for [girl job] despite me being grossly overqualified for [boy job that I can’t be interviewed for]. I have gone to interviews where it is made clear to me that I’m the affirmative action candidate, that they were intrigued by my claim to play video games [which I was tested on], and then had the technical interviewer act astounded because during my whiteboarding exercise, I followed a coding standard that prevents a security breach and no other applicants did— and then not gotten the job. I have had jobs where my opinion was dismissed by my superiors who were less qualified than me, who repeatedly interrupted me during demos to tell me that I’m doing the demo wrong on a product that the interrupter has never used— and then gotten fired for calmly standing up to him.

So let me tell you why there are so few games with strong female protagonists and so few games with characters that women can identify with as idealized heroes: games are made by men for themselves.

rapewhistled:

bonny-notion:

found this in a doctors office

im not convinced they know what drugs do

what r u talking about? i been high for the last 3 weeks after ironing a shirt this shit dank af

today I described a patient as “brusque" in their progress notes, but they are a legal document I’m not sure I can’t make value judgements like that (it was better than saying “rude & irritating").

It may seem like looking into a microscope, but this is actually the Iranian countryside, as-seen from orbit.

herr-lucifer:

Everyday phrases

I stayed up late one night in April to catch the morning light on the artwork that is the Outback.